The Three Bears (comic strip)

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The Three Bears was a long-running British comic strip which appeared in the British comics magazine The Beano.^[12] It first featured in 1959's issue 881 and ran sporadically until 2011 through reprints and several artists.

Synopsis

Ma and Pa Bear and their young son Teddy (later called Ted) were three

It made its first appearance in issue 881,[13] drawn by Leo Baxendale at first and then by Bob McGrath for most of its run.^[12]

Originally disappearing from the comic after issue 2253,

1999–2007 strips

The strip appeared again in 2000, when, after being a 'Guest Star' since the previous year, it was voted into the comic by Beano readers, beating

They appeared in the Beano Annual 2007 again drawn by Parkins, and in the Beano Annual 2008 in which Ted shaves off animals' hair including Pa's. This was drawn by Ken Harrison. They made another appearance in The Beano's 2008 Summer Special, again drawn by Chris McGhie. In the 2009 annual they were drawn by Hunt Emerson, appearing alongside another Western-themed Beano star, Little Plum.

Their final new story in the weekly comic came in issue 3365 of The Beano, drawn by Tom Paterson.^[17] This was a new strip, not a reprint. The characters later reappeared three years later in issue 3541.^[18]

Recent appearances

In annuals, they have been drawn by Mike Pearse (2001, 2002, 2003), Chris McGhie (2004), Ken Harrison (2005, 2006, 2008), David Parkins (2007), Hunt Emerson (2009) and David Sutherland (2012).

The Three Bears are often seen in the

The Three Bears are featured in the 2015 Beano Annual.[11]

The Three Bears made a cameo appearance in the 2022 Beano annual, in two panels of a Betty and hse Yeti.

Parodies of the strip

The strip was the subject of two parodies by the adult comic

• The first was a surreal parody entitled 'The Three Chairs', about a family of three chairs who lived in a cave and frequently robbed Frank's Store for food.
• The second was called 'Three Blairs' in which Pa represented the then British Prime Minister
  House of Commons due to hunger. To distract "Hank" while "Ma" and "Ted" rob the store "Pa" stages a press conference outside "Hank's" store and states that all the conditions have been met for Britain to start using the Euro. "Hank" promptly states this is untrue and chases after "Pa" while shooting at him. Though this plan works "Ma" and "Ted" have eaten all the food by the time "Pa" has returned home. In the last panel the newspaper reads that the Prime Minister has fainted in the House of Commons. Coincidentally this strip was drawn by Brian Walker
  , a former Beano artist, albeit never on The Three Bears.
• 'The Three Shakespeares' also appeared in Viz in February/March 1999. The Shakespeares were engaged in attempting to steal sonnets from Christopher Marlowe, who in one scene had left them out on the windowsill "to cool". Eventually they were given a slap-up meal by Francis Bacon: "Slobber. Our favourite – dramatic monologues composed in iambic decasyllabic blank verse. And mash."[20]

References